Rishikesh Randoms, Part 2

In Rishikesh, I spend five hours a day involved in yoga-related activities.  In the remaining hours, I am eating, reading, writing or hanging out with my old man friend.

Brij Mehra's dogs, Lilly and Janti, sniffed me out first.  It was my second or third day in town, and I was getting to know the street sellers, Mr. Cow Security and The Palmello Kid.  I had just made my first purchase, and I was sitting on Palmello Kid's spare plastic stool as he meticulously peeled the grapefruity goodness.  We were engaged in one of those heartwarming slightly incomprehensible conversations involving his fifteen words of English, my five words of Hindi, and a lot of head bobbling and hand waving, when India's only two leashed dogs approached me.  On the other end of the leashes was an elderly man with a classic elderly man borderline-grimace.  Despite my first impression of his somewhat miserly-ness, he approached me with the same sort of warm curiosity as the dogs.  Before he told me his own name, he spoke on behalf of the kanines.  Lilly was the name of the mother, and her (shamefully cowardly) son was known as Janti.

I'm not sure if it was the intuition of the dogs or the intuition of Brij, but after only a few minutes of conversing, he invited me to his place for a coffee.  I was still waiting for the palmello to be peeled (it was becoming quite a process, probably part of The Palmello Kid's marketing scheme:  "Check it out, everybody.  White girls buy my palmellos. Don't you want to buy one, too?")  Brij lived only half a block away, so I figured I could sneak away briefly.

In addition to the two loyal dogs, Brij has two lovely domestic workers and an assortment of regular visitors.  And, because he is 78 and because he is Brij, people just do whatever he tells them to do.  When we arrived at his house, he told one of the regular visitors, a sweet young man by the name of Neerij, to set up two chairs for us in the garden and to turn on the kettle.  No sooner were the words uttered than I was sitting in a plastic chair with a cup of instant coffee in my hand.  Little did I know that in that moment I was being christened as another one of his regular visitors who was magically charmed into unquestioningly following his instructions and guidance.

In that brief meeting (I couldn't stay long because of the palmello and my yoga class), he managed to set up one of my first adventures in the area.  His domestic worker, Rajiv, was assigned to take me on a walk up the big hill that creates the backdrop for the neighborhood.  Rajiv's family home is near the top, so I would be able to meet his parents and siblings as well as enjoy the impressive view.  This was not intended to be all trekking and chai drinking fun and games, though.  Brij is an ideas man, and he thought that the family could potentially develop some of their land into a small tourism venture.  I was instructed to go armed with my camera and a set of entrepreneur's eyes.    

After debriefing my sweaty but enjoyable visit to the Rajiv's family home, I was assigned to expand this hilltop hike to the masses.  Brij must have sensed that I have a knack for project management, so with his encouragement, together we concluded that it would be a good idea to organize a group trek for my yoga classmates as an income generating project for Rajiv's family.  Echoing elements of my past lives, I was soon making announcements and posting a sign-up sheet and stressing out about whether or not people would enjoy the trek and if there would be enough food to go around.  

What developed out of these talks about trekking and packed lunches was really comforting companionship.  I began visiting Brij nearly every day, and every day I would give him an update on the number of people signed up for the trek and hash out some of the little details about the plan, such as the best method for transporting a tomato salad.  However, we mostly talked about life -- his past, my future, the personalities of Lilly and Janti, the stories of people we love, the sunny-side of American culture/lifestyle, the rituals of Hinduism, etc.  Often these conversations took place during "happy hour".  Booze is illegal in Rishikesh -- you can't find a drop of it in any restaurant or store.  But, Brij would open a little speak-easy for me most nights after my yoga lecture.  We would each enjoy one whiskey and soda, and I would revel in this single act of yoga defiance due to the influence of my 78 year old friend.

Now that Project Group Trek has passed (with great success, might I add), my visits to Brij continue.  Brij has been one of the greatest gifts to the greatest hits tour.  For me, there is something extremely comforting about regularly spending time in the presence of someone much older and wiser than me.  There is something about our generational gap that makes me more open-minded, accepting, compassionate, and naturally loving.  It's nice knowing there is someone looking forward to my next visit, and it is nice to have a house where I am always welcome. Being in his presence makes me feel nearer to my own family, even those who have long since passed away.  To put it simply, it's really nice to hang out with someone I get along with so well.  

There was certainly some magic involved in meeting Brij and the cultivation of our friendship.  We could maybe chalk it up to the special energy of Rishikesh again. However, what is critical to the existence of this relationship is my presence in one place for longer than the blink of an eye.  The truth is, as much as I may appear to be an adventurous traveller, I'm not all that good at it.  I'm built to foster relationships -- to have a regular check-out lane or corner store, to know the name and a few personal details of my local bartender, to have a favorite corner table at the cutest cafe, to have people to wave to and greet, to have a plastic stool next to The Palmello Kid, and to have a wonderful old man friend whose house I can drop into at any time.     

So, for this reason, I am pretty much certain that I will spend another month in Rishikesh, not leaving until I actually have to get on the plane in Delhi.  Why mess with a good thing?

Hula Hoping

Today is the 30th birthday of one of the world's most amazing women.  Amazing women deserve awesomeness every day, but they particularly deserve awesomeness on their birthdays.  I want to be one of the contributors to this amazing woman's day of awesomeness, but I am finding it a bit challenging.  Firstly, the emotional challenge: when you love someone so very much, just about any action does not seem sufficient in channeling the bigness of your love.  Secondly, the logistical challenge:  I'm an American on holiday in India, and she is a Kiwi on holiday in Europe.    

The only gift I could come up with to combat these difficulties of emotion dramatization and friendship globalization is to promote her amazingness.  This woman is a very talented musician who goes by the moniker Hula Hope.  She recently released a lovely album with "songs about threshing wheat and charming men, on the folk side of pop." It is truly great, and I think everyone should listen to it.  

So, my gift to her -- and to all of you! -- is the proliferation of this link: 

http://hulahope.bandcamp.com/

Here are a few bonus tracks, too. (Hula Hope also enjoys music video production.):  

(A brief digression:  In the spirit of sharing Hula Hope videos, I might as well throw in a project on which I collaborated with Hula Hope and Anna-grams.  It is a great source of joy and pride and complete ridiculousness for me:    https://vimeo.com/44302601)

SO...

Happy birthday, Hula Hope!  May this new decade be filled with awesomeness in your music career and beyond.

Rishikesh Randoms, Part 1

About a week ago, I arrived to Rishikesh -- a bonanza of yoga and relative peacefulness nestled into the foothills of the Himalayas.  I came here with the intention of attending a four week yoga course with a school called Agama.  My course is certainly not the only one on the block, though.  You can't walk more than a few meters without seeing a sign advertising a teacher or a class or a program related to yoga or Ayurveda.  Rishikesh is considered a bit of an auspicious spot by Indian Hindus, and, now, with the explosion of yoga in the Western world in the last decade or so, it has also become a hub for travellers and enlightenment-seekers from all corners of the world to congregate. There is a cyclical nature to this that I quite like.  One of the dudes who is credited with bringing yoga to the West (Swami Sivananda) led his adult spiritual life in Rishikesh.  From this town, the wisdom of yoga flowed out to the rest of the world and now the rest of the world is flowing back in.     

With this bit of background, you will have some context for a statement that I hear with some regularity amongst the yoga scene in Rishikesh: "this place has some really special energy."  I can't say for sure what that means, but I can say that I have been on my Anna Skinner game in a way that I have not experienced in ages.  One important amazing symptom of this is that I have been meeting some pretty awesome characters. The first nugget of note is Om the Jeweller with Diarrhea of the Mouth.

When I say that I am staying in Rishikesh, it's a bit of a lie.  I am staying just outside of Rishikesh town in a neighborhood called Swargashram on the other side of the river from the hustle and bustle.  It's a quiet (no cars allowed!) little stretch of one road with ashrams, restaurants, chai shops, bookstores, mini convenience corners, and a few street-cart salesmen.  This means I pass by the same relatively small group of people several times every day.  This might be annoyingly repetitive for some people, but it is ideal for me.  It means that I already know the names of many of the shop owners and get frequent invites for a chai and a chat.  It means that after only three days I was already feeling  like this place was home.  It's like my tiny Rishikesh version of Cuba Street in Wellington or Long Street in Cape Town.  

On my  first walk down this road, I had a brief exchange with Om the Jeweler with Diarrhea of the Mouth.  I was still easing out of my tough-girl exterior acquired while traveling through the madness of urban northern India, so I was not open for conversation business.  I immediately wrote him off as a likely asscrawler.  Twenty four hours later, though, that Rishikesh energy must have been coursing through me because when he invited me into his shop for a chai, I very happily agreed.  I let him unleash his tendency towards verbal diarrhea,  which I mostly found fascinating, estimating only a 25% bullshit rate.  

In one of his rare breaks in speech, I managed to ask a question about the large number of sadhus sprawled out on the benches along the road.  (Quick note on sadhus:  they are "renunciators" following a spiritual path.  They are usually wearing saffron/salmon colored sarongs/robes, they often have wild hair, and they generally look really fierce/maniacal in this manner that I find awesomely intriguing.)   "Are these saffron-wearing dudes really all sadhus...because some of them look like they are on drugs?"  This led to another lengthy description, still upholding the same suspected bullshit rate.  The important information that I believe to be true is that many of the sadhus are for real but some of them are sort of putting on an act to facilitate a lucrative beggar lifestyle.  Some of them might have started out as sadhus with a genuine spiritual focus but they have become involved in drugs and lured in my modern electronics/conveniences.  The most important part of his diarrhea of the mouth was this statement:  "Do you want to go meet a 'real sadhu'?  I can take you to meet one now."  

         

My answer to this question couldn't be more obvious (although the idea was still given some sensible consideration because of the 25% bullshit rate factor and the still existing possibility that Om the Jeweler was an undercover asscrawler).  

I followed my intuition, and I jumped on the back of Om's motorbike.  We headed over the bridge and a bit out of town, down a bumpy dirt road to a new-ish construction site next to the Ganga.  Just in front of the frame of the soon-to-be hotel was a simple but spacious three-walled hut.  It had a wonderful view of the river and the green foothills that have not yet been taken over by guesthouses and restaurants.   Bookending this meager living space was a large Shiva shrine at the front entrance and a big rasta-colored Bob Marley sarong on the back wall.  

Shiva and Bob.  Interesting combo.

Om the Jeweler introduced me to the small crew of men.  I met Hut-owner Baba, Oldman Visiting Baba, Silent Young Baba, and the Babas' Domestic Worker.  I sat in the presence of these babas, not entirely understanding what was going on but totally fascinated by everything I was witnessing -- the pimped-out aspects of this hut life (electricity and hotplate equipped), Hut-owner Baba's amazing dreadlocks that nearly reached his ankles when he unravelled the mass that usually sat like a crown on top of his head, the discussion of the flood that annually destroys the hut, the Babas' Domestic Worker brewing chai, Silent Young Baba playing with a smartphone, and then the bowl of hot water with a small bit of plastic wrap and some unidentified substance inside that looked a bit like sludge.  It was this last fascinating item that gave me an opportunity to ask what I thought to be a socially appropriate question:  

Me:  "Hey, what's in the bowl?"

Om:  "Opium.  Do you want some?"

Me:  "No. no.  Definitely not.  No"

Like I said, Shiva and Bob.  Interesting combo.

So, I sipped my chai, walked down to the Ganga to say a prayer (as encouraged by all Babas involved), watched the ingestion of opium for the first time in my life, and then turned down a puff of the pipe of marijuana.  Hut-owner Baba actually spoke decent English (another trait that made this lifestyle all the more suspicious), so we talked a bit about America and he told me a bit about how he had been living "the sadhu life" since he was seven years old.  

After what I deemed to be a polite passing of time, I gently vocalized my interest in getting out of this weird vortex of sadhu-non-sadhu-possibly-drug-dealer life so I could return to my sweet little sober Swargashram atmosphere for some dinner.  As a farewell and thanks for the visit, Hut-owner Baba offered me a blessing.  Although I thought his spiritual path was largely bullshit, I thought he might have had a 25% authenticity rate. Bob might have been on the back wall, but the Shiva shrine was very impressive and surely much more of a permanent image than that of the sarong.  Besides, there is hardly anyone whose blessing I wouldn't accept.  So, he smudged some holy ash in the area of my third eye and mumbled a few words in a holy language.  As I folded forward to meet my head to the ground, he patted my back, and, in a move that simultaneously boosted and lowered his authenticity rating, stated the words that a Charlie Skinner sort of sadhu would speak:  "God bless you, baby."  

And, God bless you, too, Baba/baby.

I chose not to ask Om the Jeweler any questions about what exactly made Hut-owner Baba a 'real sadhu' when we returned to Swargashram.  He, however, insisted on paying for my dinner, and I could only assume that it was because he felt guilty about his own bullshit rate as well as that of Hut-Owner Baba.  

Despite the absurdity of the sadhu-non-sadhu visit, I loved it and I am thrilled that I get to spend three more weeks in a place where such randomness happens with ease.  This good energy might do me some real random good.  

Rishikesh, let's rock and roll.

   

      

A Different Call to Prayer

Like so many who have come before me, I have had expectations that this journey through India will be a spiritual one.  India has existed in my mind as one big, over-populated holy land that is sure to bring me a bit closer to myself and a bit closer to God.  Why wouldn't this be the site of my spiritual breakthrough?  India is, after all, the birthplace of yoga and the home of a bazillion gurus.  It is the county where Mother Teresa received her "call within a call" from God to serve the poorest of the poor.  It is where Siddartha Gautama sat under a tree and became who we know today as Buddha.  It is where The Beatles studied Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh.  And, perhaps most importantly, India is the setting of the 'Pray' section of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat Pray Love.

In just my first two weeks, I have already visited a number of the spiritual sites referenced:  Mother Teresa's tomb (and her former bedroom), the site of Buddha's enlightenment as well as the site of his first sermon, and a puja (prayer service) at one of the sacred rivers of the Hindus, the Ganges.  All of these experiences have been interesting, pleasant and meditative in their own rights, but they have not been the moments that I have felt closest to a higher power.  In my first few days, before visiting any of these important places, I was unexpectedly called to prayer continuously.  My prayers sounded something like this:

"Dear God, please help me navigate around these multiple piles of poo."

"Dear God, please don't let that rickshaw slam into this bus."

"Dear God, please don't let that taxi run me over."

"Dear God, please save me from a case of raging diarrhea after this meal."

"Dear God, please tell my gag reflex to chill out."

"Dear God, please make this dude leave me alone."

"Dear God, please turn off this incessant noise."

"Dear God, please don't let me suffer from molestation or theft on this train."

"Dear God, PLEASE DON'T LET ME LOSE MY MIND!!!"

"And, PS, please God bless these people living very meager lives (particularly the barefoot men earning their wages by transporting Kolkata on their hand-pulled rickshaws)."

From what I can surmise, India is not the divine location of people's spiritual revolutions because it is filled with gurus and ashrams and yoga and all the remnants of these amazing people who were super close to something bigger than themselves.  For me at least, India is a bonanza of spirituality because it is testing me at every turn.  How far can I take you before you break?  Can I give you 87 people crawling up your ass at once, and can you still remain open-hearted and loving?  (For the record, the response to this question at the moment is absolutely not.)  Can you be hot, tired, and hungry, and still treat all living things with loving kindness?  (Again, nope.)  Can I completely over-stimulate your senses, and can you maintain focus and patience?  (Hmmm, not really.)  Can you accept that life is a big, messy, crazy, unorganized thing, and that I am going to illustrate this to you on these streets, everywhere you turn?  (I'm trying!)  Can you balance all of your emotions and traits at once, particularly maintaining light-hearted intuitiveness and straight-forward assertiveness in equal parts?  (Yeah.  Right.)  

I admit that on this trip I have had quite a bit of hubris around my ability to travel and integrate into unfamiliar settings.  Enter India!  This country is knocking me right on my ass, making me a bit more humble and handing back my sense of wonder and complete bewilderment.  Sometimes shaking out that excessive pride is overwhelming and scary, but I ultimately think that it is really, really good for me (even if it sometimes feels a bit bad).

   

A friend recently said something to me about how reaching enlightenment is not about sitting in a quiet room in meditation, but rather that it's about putting yourself in a situation that really challenges you and brings you face to face with your ugliness.  Let me tell you -- India is no quiet room.  

So, I will keep praying and I will keep looking at my ugliness, and, hopefully, I will survive this crazy place, perhaps even with a bit more of a sense of equanimity and wisdom.  

Bring it on, India!!!